Sharnado, bowling balls and drinking straws, Mary Poppins-sampled music video, and neutral clouds in soda

Have i mentioned Sharknado? A cursory review of previous blogposts indicates i have not. By this point, you have undoubtedly encountered trailers for what is surely the mega-blockbuster cinema masterpiece of the summer, entitled 'Sharknado' (for entire plot, including spoilers, please refer to this article). Briefly, it depicts a tornado bearing living sharks which menaces LA. As with many things awesome, there's a semi-relevant XKCD comic, and now shoes. Also, Holly shared this awesome monokini, the sharkini, a garment that i have plans to make and wear some time soon.

A brief discourse regarding childbirth by the excellent humorist Dave Berry. It's from 2000, and i totally remember reading it one Sunday morning sitting at my parents' breakfast table, laughing really hard; " The teacher usually starts with a scientific discussion of childbirth, in which she shows us various diagrams and models to give us an idea of what will be happening when the Big Moment arrives. In my opinion, the most informative way to do this would be to hold up a bowling ball and a drinking straw, and say: "Basically, THIS has to go through THIS" ".

I ADORED Mary Poppins, the first book, as a child. i have incredibly vivid memories of eating licorice on my grandparents' porch swing while reading it, over and over. i don't think i've seen the entire Disney movie ( i cannot sit still, even as a child), but this is a really cool sampled song generated from bits and pieces of the movie (via The MarySue).

In which Wil Wheaton gives advice about being a nerd to someone's infant daughter here (with props to Ryan on the link); "And i want you to work hard, because everything worth doing is hard."

Finally, i was having an early dinner with Holly and Bryan at the Library (no, the one with food) last night, and ordered a ginger beer. These have become a minor obsession, and thus continues the search for the Holy Grail of ginger beer, super spicy without cheating by capsaicin, and not impossible to obtain on a regular basis. The bar featured Barritt's Ginger Beer. In ascertaining whether it it contained capsaicin, Bryan took a look at the ingredients. "Neutral Cloud?!" "Better than an biased cloud." "Or an acidic one." Researching it this morning,

 me:  neutral cloud is apparently an emulsion designed to make your beverage cloudy

 Bryan:  interesting

 me:  'neutral' would indicate taste/color?

not nearly as exciting as i'd hoped

 Bryan:  why do i want a cloudy beverage?

 me:  "Clouding agents are used in soft drink manufacture to give a more natural appearance
to products with a low juice content; they can also mask sedimentation and “ringing” -
where coloring/flavoring oils rise to the surface of the container during storage.
Clouding agents are normally supplied as emulsions similar to flavor emulsions" from here

sandwich assualt, citrus disease, kangaroo pouches, Strava, and waysides.

First and foremost, as seen on FB today, this article describing how a man, in argument, apparently threw a sandwich (back) at his girlfriend. The girlfriend was on crutches, and the sandwich caused her to fall backwards. Comments? The "charge is baloney", "it is the wurst", "i hear she got a cold cut"... Excellent.

i was super excited to see this NYTimes article featuring a TAMU plant pathologist (who happens to be a really nice guy); the article is about citrus greening, a fairly serious bacterial disease, and efforts to curb it.

i went canoeing/camping this weekend with a large group of friends (6 canoes!) on the Wisconsin River. While in route, my friend Kate and i fell into discussion about several things. A long standing area of speculation has been marsupials, pouches, and how those things get cleaned (Kate's inquiry is whether joeys defecate). They do. Apparently the mother kangaroo uses her tongue to clean out the pouch. Additionally, if you're rearing an orphaned/unpouched joey, you ought to do the same. On that same note, female kangaroos have dual (two lateral ) uteri.

The town where we put into the water is called Muscoda, which means 'Prairie of Flowers', but was also called English Prairie, " named for two English fur traders, Abraham Lansing and Garrit Roseboom, who opened a post there at the close of the French and Indian War. Lansing and his son were murdered in 1763 by their French assistants, and the fame of murder kept the name alive well into the 19th century", as taken from the Wisconsin Historical Society's site.

While driving, we noticed that Wisconsin has waysides, which are like scaled down rest areas (Minnesota has areas called waysides too, according to the internet, but these are park areas too small to be considered full parks). Why make the distinction? Are they not all rest areas?

Some friends use the running/cycling ap Strava, which tracks your location and pace. This can be compared to others' pace along the same route, with the fastest time-holder given the title King Of The Mountain. (sigh) Anyhow, the highly competitive nature of cyclists (and runners, and pretty much folks from all athletic endeavors) leads to some issue; lately in the news come reports of a cyclist striking and killing a pedestrian while using Strava, as well another cyclist crashing and dying (and his family attempting to unsuccessfully sue the company).

So last night i dreamed that i gave birth to a pterodactyl. It was not super happy/good regarding breastfeeding. i mean, that makes sense, milk is a mammal sort of thing, and pterodactyls were not mammals. i was joking around with my friend Allison this morning regarding how about 60% of my coupled friends are having kids, thus a large influx of babyshowers. She commented, if i was indeed pregnant with a pterodactyl, what she should bring to my babyshower; i figure a leash? Probably more like raptor jesses. (Also, this is not a serious concern, as far as i can tell.)

Expounding, i'm pretty sure the dream came about due to things i'd read directly before going to bed; googling the top speeds of dinosaurs, and an article on the recent royal birth.

Regarding the top speeds of dinosaurs, my dear friend Kelly AT recently posted a motivational poster on my FB wall, in which what appears to be a T. Rex is chasing some running humans. Of course, my first response was, 'hmm, i'd only need to be faster than the other human in the picture', but the second response was, 'How fast DID a T. rex run?' While no one was necessarily around to clock dinosaurs, there are apparently a couple of ways to estimate this. People have tried looking at the petrified tracks of dinosaurs, and based on foot angle and stride length, attempted to determine the speed at which that reptile was traveling. The caveat here is that while there is highly correlative data, it's impossible to match exactly up dino tracks with the exact species (plus allow for constraints like metabolism and structure). Other ways of estimating dino velocity, and this is super cool, are using structure to model running dinosaurs in silico based on musculoskeletal data. (And take a look at these running patterns! Geeking out!) The scientists doing this compared known animals like emus and ostriches (and humans), and it looks like Tyrannosauri would have had an average running speed of around 8 m/s, or 17.9 mph. Velociraptors, and lets be honest, those things are terrifying, cruised around at an estimated 11 m/s, or 24.6 mph. Humans (with the exception of particular Olympic level track stars), run around 8.1 m/s, barely beating the T. rex. The fastest dinosaur modeled was a turkey-sized dino called Compsognathus, which was estimated to run at nearly 18 m/s, or around 40 mph. Now i bid you to imagine them all as chickens of varying size.

(Another thing i came across while googling pterodactyls this morning was this nsfw music video from the Oatmeal. Also bearing mention here is the mockumentary film Carnosaur, in which a mad scientist somehow generates a virus that makes female humans birth things which are chicken/dinosaur smash-ups. It was mock-gory and pretty hilarious.)

And yeah, Kate Middleton gave birth to a healthy baby boy on Monday, 8lbs and change. They've only just named him, apparently George Alexander Louis. (And... Joffery was probably never an option.)

mosquito blood type preferences, twitter and indulgences, Tyr and tuesday, triage and coffee

i have a long standing theory that mosquitoes favor certain blood types. Looking into this while actually near the internet (instead of outside, with a cold beverage and a group of friends), turns out others have wondered this same thing. Looks like mosquitoes favor males with type O+ blood, who are athletic and slightly overweight. In the words of this article, " if you're a type O secretor, to a mosquito you look like caramel-covered crack ". So there you go. Also, apparently mosquitoes aren't very strong flyers.

From Ryan, a notice that the Vatican is granting indulgences to people following the Pope's twitter feed for a live account of World Youth Day in Brazil this year, and other events. (indulgences, in the Catholic tradition, is time taken off a person's time in purgatory, in exchange for performing certain actions or, in the case of the middle ages, money.) Curious, and requiring large amounts of clarification in that a person must basically be praying along. i don't know if i don't know if i covered it a while back, but Pope Francis gave a homily which included the statement, " The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe, Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: We will meet one another there ". This has raised a not few eyebrows, and various interpretations. i really enjoyed this article in which an atheist author positively reviews Pope Francis' actions.

A thing i have learned today is that the day of the week 'Tuesday' takes it's name from a Norse god, Tyr. Tyr has an interesting story, in that he was probably the head of the Norse pantheon at some point, most famous for lacking a hand. Apparently, a mythical wolf named Fenrir, of whom it was prophesied would eventually kill Odin and cause large amounts of trouble, was being bound and breaking free of however the gods tried to hold him. Thusly, "  It appeared to be only a silken ribbon but was made of six wondrous ingredients: the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, bear's sinews (meaning nerves, sensibility), fish's breath and bird's spittle. The creation of (this ribbon) Gleipnir is said to be the reason why none of the above exist ", and required someone to put their hand in Fenrir's mouth while they tied the dwarves' ribbon. Tyr was the only one brave enough. Somewhere in the mix, his hand got bitten off. Tyr is also the Norse god of victory, and the athletic outfitter TYR is named for this.

In brief, got into a discussion with a friend the other day; neither of us could remember who was the Greek mythical figure that was sentenced to spend eternity pushing a rock up a hill, only to watch it it roll back down, then having to repeat the process (the reasons why are varied). (We were attempting to paddle across a bay, being pushed the opposite direction by a strong breeze). i could only remember Prometheus being chained to a rock, and Atlas holding up the Earth, so i eventually googled it and came up with Sisyphus. Sisyphus was an interesting character, apparently a king, a seducer, and a highwayman, and there is more than one account why he was so sentenced. i related this information via text:

Me:  Anyway, the guy in Greek mythology who's forever rolling a rock up a hill was Sisyphus.
B: Oh yes, Syphilis. How could i forget that?

(Ah, clever; i nearly dropped the phone laughing.)


Another thing i learned today regards the word 'triage' (the definition of which i was double-checking while coming upon the information presented above). Triage typically refers to the prioritization of patient treatment in battle and other chaotic situations whereby the worst-off get treated first.  The root word here is 'tri', related to the French for sorting or culling.Triage coffee (here, scroll down), on the other hand, refers to the lowest grade of coffee, containing fragments. rocks, and other debris (bullets?!). It's apparently not ideal for home roasting, as the fragments can get stuck in small roaster heating elements.

Coffee related: iced coffee is delicious and appropriate for when temperatures are over 90 degrees F and one doesn't have an air conditioner in one's apartment. i looked around for various iced coffee recipes, the gist of which seems to be 'place ground coffee in a container, pour cold water over the top, stir, let sit about 8 hours, filter out coffee grounds, and store (concentrated) coffee in the fridge; dilute before drinking with either water, ice, ice cream, milk or whatever'. i finally decided upon the ratio 1 part coffee to 6 parts water (using an 8 cup container) , and diluting one part coffee concentrate to one part water and one part milk directly before drinking. While there's a range of ways to filter, i tried using my french press. This didn't filter as well as hoped, and also paper filters absorb coffee oils; mine had a slight oil scum congealing on the top. These are the things one figures out as one goes along.

sodium drama, words, Basquiat and cultural capital, Dancing In The Streets cover

Thing number 1; who replaced the cajun-seasoning salt (the one my family lovingly refers to as 'the kick') that i keep in the kitchen at work with a lower sodium version? It appears that the former container was used up (okay, no worries, glad others are enjoying it), but is this a comment on their or my sodium intake? Folks, it's 90 degrees outside and i run. Please do not worry about my sodium levels. (Annnd, that concludes my bit of work-related drama for the day. Hopefully.) Furthermore, exactly what are we to call that room? It's a room where we have lab meetings, as well as a microwave/toaster, fridge, and various coffee-related paraphernalia. The PI across the hall, who did his post-doc in England, refers to it as the 'tea room'. i call it the kitchen, or break room. i think our lab manager calls it the conference room, and my own PI refers to it by the room number.

Speaking of words, one that has come up with surprising frequency lately is 'bombastic'. It's from the Mideaval Latin bombax, or cotton, originally referring to padding. The contexts in which one now usually hears it is as a description, when something is heavily elaborated or padded, as it was used to direct how a prelim should be presented (err, i don't agree with that, necessarily, but that's how it was used), or to describe JayZ's latest album in an NPR article. In the complicated arc that my lunchtime online rambles take, that JayZ article mentions another describing that Jean-Michel Basquiat is name-dropped a lot on aforementioned album. First (with apologies), i had to google Basquiat, a notable artist whose stuff i recognized once i saw it. The man got his start as a graffiti artist, evolving into both current and historical commentary, usually poetic in nature (using the tag SAMO, for Same Old). Anyway, take-home message is that apparently the album is partially JayZ reconciling his beginnings with his current affluent status while recognizing culture in which he grew up. i particularly appreciated the link to the idea of cultural capital; " On a somewhat obvious level, they serve Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital: that one can establish his or her social class not just by the things he or she can afford, but also the cultural artifacts one is familiar with, such as art, music, cinema and fashion. ". Super interesting. And logical.

This list, of "30 Signs you're almost 30", is hitting pretty close to home, particularly (#2) all the pictures on your facebook feed are of babies or (#3) or of marathon times. (sigh) Congrats to all those currently or recently pregnant, and to all my athletic friends!

Keira Knightley got married in early May, in what appears to be a 'recycled' wedding dress. i can respect that.

While looking around during lunch today, i came across this incredibly baffling version of Martha and the Vandellas' Dancing in the Streets as covered in 1985 by none other than Mick Jagger and David Bowie. Amazed, i gchatted Lauren, who has a flair for music and fashion.

Lauren:  wow

and that mouth

 me:  sheesh

the mouth, the clothes, the whole business

 Lauren:  yes

they look like kids

 me:  skinny indie youth

 Lauren:  yes

 me:  i guess they were, kinda

well, David Bowie was 38

(in that clip)

 Lauren:  huh

 me:  and Mick was 42

i'm gonna credit heavy drug use

 me:  for the whole thing, actually

 Lauren:  ha, yes

summer desserts, cherry pit vodka/cyanide discussion

The NYtimes recently covered, with pretty much the entirety of their Food page, pies. Among various articles was this one for stack pie.
i'd heard of the Appalachian wedding tradition of stack cake; for the wedding cake, guests bring layers (1/couple or family), and those get stacked at the wedding, interspersed with apple butter. i really, really like the interactive nature of such a tradition. Stack pie seems to build on this, so-to-speak, in that it's from the same region with the same prep method. Also, can you imagine the flavor combinations? Cream pie on top, followed by a strawberry or fruit pie, and a creamcheese pie/cheese cake on the bottom?
Similarly but not, Bryan mentioned  a sort of dessert terducken, where there's a cookie baked into a cake, baked into a pie. i've also found evidence of cherpumple, or cherry/pumpkin/apple pie (this one kind of makes my head hurt).

Speaking of cherries, my PI's out of town this weekend, but left a note up in lab saying that her cherry tree was 'dead ripe' and needed to be harvested. So i find myself with a double handful of pie cherries. The fruit themselves will unquestionably be made into pie, but i hate to waste anything like free cherry pits with a story. Online websites report cherry pit-flavored vinegar, and cherry-pit infused vodka. My Polish self can't let an account of vodka pass unnoticed, of course, which brings us to the interesting quandary of cyanide levels in stone fruit pits and other fruit seeds; it's not necessarily swallowing the seeds alone, but more the crushing that's a problem. Further investigation yielded this quantitative (and very nicely laid out) post; " So if you have a case of the suicidal munchies, 30 apricot kernels will be the starting point to get you looking down the tunnel towards the light. Thirty kernels probably won't kill you, but you'll be in a very bad state where you'll most likely be vomiting and hyperventilate with abdominal pains as you slowly suffocate which will cause you a great deal of anxiety. ". (The second part discusses how to break down cyanide, but then sort of turns into a lecture on backing up claims with research) In short, maybe not so much with the cherry pit vodka.

And finally, since we're on the topic of questionable beverages, today is the 4th of July, and Jack is having a thing. i'd mentioned wanting ice cream floats, and she somehow remembered that i (or someone) favored floats with a red soda. Yes! Summer as a child tasted like ice cream floats made with Blue Bell home made vanilla ice cream and Big Red soda. (Supposedly, red cream soda is only a thing in the American south.) i tried to explain the flavor, ending with, 'There's a lot going on in that beverage'. But, it doesn't taste like cherry despite the redness; we shall have to see what the Yankees think of this quintessential summer treat. While looking at the wiki site, Jack noted that there's an energy drink called Big Jak, which lead to the discovery of this rather funny review/ flash site rant which opened with " I see you're admiring my registered sex offender mustache halloween costume. Based on my conversation with police this year, it was one of the more convincing costumes they'd seen. " Awesome.